The human heart can suffer from various valvular diseases. These valvular diseases can result in significant malfunctioning of the heart and ultimately require repair of the native valve or replacement of the native valve with an artificial valve. There are a number of known repair devices (e.g., stents) and artificial valves, as well as a number of known methods of implanting these devices and valves in humans. Because of the drawbacks associated with conventional open-heart surgery, percutaneous and minimally-invasive surgical approaches are garnering intense attention. In one technique, a prosthetic device is configured to be implanted in a much less invasive procedure by way of catheterization. For example, collapsible transcatheter prosthetic heart valves can be crimped to a compressed state and percutaneously introduced in the compressed state on a catheter and expanded to a functional size at the desired position by balloon inflation or by utilization of a self-expanding frame or stent.
A challenge of implanting a prosthetic valve via a catheterization is control and positioning of the distal end of the delivery apparatus (i.e., the end of the apparatus that is advanced into a patient's heart) and prosthetic valve during the implantation procedure. An additional challenge includes variation in anatomy between patients, which can make some delivery apparatuses or methods unsuitable for patients with particular anatomy.
Thus, there is a continuing need for improved transcatheter prosthetic devices and delivery apparatuses for implanting such devices.